The Library Administrative Staff - ABA consolidates Multiple Functions

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1 Acquisitions and Bibliographic Access Directorate Library of Congress Report of Fiscal Year 2008 (Fiscal Year Ended September 30, 2008) Fiscal 2008 was a remarkable and historic year for the Acquisitions and Bibliographic Access Directorate of the Library of Congress. The directorate cataloged more than 325,000 volumes; acquired more than two million items for the Library s collections from all parts of the world; and advanced policy and standards for the entire library community. Throughout the year, ABA worked intensively to design a new organization and workflows that fully integrate acquisitions and cataloging functions to improve efficiency and timeliness of service. The new organization was successfully implemented at the start of the next fiscal year. Fiscal 2008 was the fourth full year of operations for the Acquisitions and Bibliographic Access Directorate, which was formed in July 2004 by the merger of the former Cataloging and Acquisitions directorates. The new ABA Directorate encompassed acquisitions and cataloging functions, recognizing that both functions serve the goal of building the Library s collections and providing access to information and knowledge. The acquisitions divisions included the Acquisitions Fiscal Office (AFO), African/Asian Acquisitions and Overseas Operations Division (AFAOVOP), Anglo-American Acquisitions Division (ANAD), European and Latin American Acquisitions Division (ELAD), and Serial Record Division (SRD). The bibliographic access divisions were the Cataloging Distribution Service (CDS) and the eight divisions of the former Cataloging Directorate: Arts and Sciences Cataloging Division (ASCD), Cataloging in Publication Division (CIP), Cataloging Policy and Support Office (CPSO), Decimal Classification Division (DEWEY), History and Literature Cataloging Division (HLCD), Regional and Cooperative Cataloging Division (RCCD), Social Sciences Cataloging Division (SSCD), and Special Materials Cataloging Division (SMCD). In addition, the Instructional Design and Training Division (IDTD) was part of ABA administratively. This division provided training and course development for the entire service unit and the wider Library community. These fourteen divisions were to be abolished by the reorganization that would take effect in October 2008 (Fiscal Year 2009). The new organization would have nine divisions that would be responsible for acquisitions, bibliographic access, policy development, and training. Acquisitions Work Accomplished The directorate acquired more than two million items for the Library s permanent collections this year. Staff in ANAD, ELAD, and AFAOVOP (detailed to RCCD) acquired 1,447,902 pieces for the Library s collections through purchase, gift, exchange, or transfer from other government agencies this year, compared to 1,073,311 pieces acquired in fiscal 2007 an increase of 35 percent. In addition, the CIP Division obtained 87,479 books submitted to meet Cataloging in Publication and Preassigned Card Number program requirements, and the directorate received 526,508 pieces obtained via the U.S. Copyright Office. 1

2 With GENPAC funding, the acquisitions divisions purchased 1,066,750 items compared to 604,795 items purchased using the GENPAC fund in fiscal This year ABA also purchased 106,072 items for the Law Library of Congress and 20,026 items using specially appropriated or revolving funds. Gift and trust funds were used to purchase 7,326 items, much less than the 13,494 items so acquired the preceding year but comparable to the 6,450 items purchased with gift and trust funds in fiscal 2006 and 7,159 items in The total of 1,200,174 purchased items represented an increase of 47 percent over the 814,726 items purchased in fiscal The increase was largely due to a single purchase of 428,566 back issues of serials to fill gaps in the Library s collections. ABA acquisitions staff, with the support of AFO, administered $10.7 million in the fiscal 2008 GENPAC appropriation, which funds the purchase of library collections materials, and $1.82 million in the separate Books for the Law Library appropriation (LAW). Staff also made purchases using $2.9 million in prior-year GENPAC, LAW, and other appropriated funds and $545,000 in gift and trust funds. In addition, during the fiscal year, Library Services supplemented purchase acquisitions with $2.4 million for the purchase of specific materials identified by the custodial divisions. In total, ABA expended $18,660, on 12,371 invoices. Some unusual purchases that enhanced the usefulness of the collections to Congress and other Library users included a multi-format collection of traditional narratives and songs of Afghani women (600 audiotapes, several hundred color photographic slides, field notebooks); a group of colonial American pamphlets purchased from the Zinman Collection; and personal papers of the American novelist Philip Roth. Other purchases included Genji Monogatari (or, the Tale of Genji, the world s first novel, originally written in the early 11 th century by Murasaki Shikibu) in a 54-volume manuscript, hand copied by Itsutsuji Moronaga ( ) in the late 15 th to early 16 th century, and authenticated by Kohitsu Ryochu ( ), an expert on manuscripts, in May 1711 (cost: $221,440.86); four richly illuminated Armenian ecclesiastical manuscripts, notable among them the Gospels copied in Noravank in 1487, containing a colophon naming the Turkoman overlord of the area, Yaqub Bek (cost: $64,000); and much material on the Jewish community in Iran. The directorate received 526,508 monographs (one-time publications) and serial (periodical) issues from the U.S. Copyright Office, approximately half the 1,077,152 pieces obtained through Copyright in fiscal As the Copyright Office adjusted to its reorganization and new automated registration system, its volume of transfers to ABA began to increase. The ABA divisions met regularly with Copyright managers and offered staff assistance to ensure that the volume of transfers would increase gradually and that Copyright receipts would not be lost during storage. The decrease in items received from Copyright had an effect on ABA s Duplicate Materials Exchange and Surplus Books programs, which largely depended on Copyright receipts that were not selected for the Library s collections to supply program partner institutions. 2

3 The directorate expended approximately $3 million on electronic media and on access to electronic journals and electronic databases. Newly acquired electronic resources included three databases from China: the complete collection of county population census data from the year 2000, assembled by the China Data Center; China Infobank and Soshoo, a web-based online service offering access to many full-text Chinese language databases covering China s news, business, legal and statistical information; and the Chinese Cultural Revolution database of source materials compiled by eight Chinese scholars from major Asian libraries and records written and collected by individuals. Exchange agreements and dealer approval plans agreements under which a book dealer selects materials for the Library according to a selection profile following the Library s Collection Policy Statements--are central to the Library s acquisition of materials from other countries, and the acquisitions divisions worked throughout the year to improve the value of both kinds of arrangement for the Library. Acquisitions staff met with dozens of book vendors during the year and paid particular attention to opportunities to acquire digital content. An acquisitions specialist for the Middle East initiated two new approval plans one for materials produced by and for the former Soviet Union émigré communities in Israel, and one for materials produced by and for the Ethiopian émigré communities in Israel. Staff in ELAD established a new approval plan with Myris Trade, Inc., for Czech law material. The Chinese Team, RCCD, established accounts with three new vendors, two in Taiwan and one in Macau. An acquisitions specialist attended the Beijing Acquisitions Book Fair in January 2008 and selected more than 800 titles on contemporary China, including material on national defense, American studies and the Communist Party. From the Library s various exchange partners, the acquisitions divisions obtained 145,981 pieces for the Library s collections, very close to the 151,479 acquired by exchange the previous year. Paul Lennon, a U.K. exchange partner, continued to provide special access to the House of Lords databases for the Law Library on an exchange basis. Also acquired on exchange, from the Biblioteca Nacional de Puerto Rico, Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña, were 74 original carteles (silkscreens and posters) with an estimated value of at least $34,000. The Duplicate Materials Exchange Program (DMEP) continued to service exchanges with more than 3,000 exchange partners in 118 countries centrally within the office of the Director for ABA. Web DMEP uses online shopping cart functionality to allow the Library s exchange partners to select materials that they wish to receive in exchange for materials that they send to the Library. The DMEP program continued to produce printed lists and to distribute them to those exchange partners who were unable or did not wish to use Web DMEP. The printed lists contained a different, but comparable, selection of books. In fiscal 2008, more than three-quarters of all books supplied by DMEP were requested via the Website. 3

4 This year DMEP supplied 8,354 books to exchange partners, less than half the 18,377 books supplied by DMEP in fiscal The decrease resulted from a delay of several months in calculating exchange quotas for the Library s exchange partners, after the Library s upgrade to the Windows XP operation system as its computing platform. In March 2007, a sole-source, one-year contract, with an option year, was awarded to BNK Infotech for DMEP Website hosting and software maintenance, following on the original contract award in The Information Technology Services Directorate (ITS), Automation Planning Liaison Office, and ABA agreed this year that it was preferable to host and maintain Web DMEP within the Library in future. In order to allow time for ITS to develop the necessary expertise in PERL and CGI programming, ABA requested an extension of the BNK contract, which was approved early the next fiscal year. Notable collections acquired by gift included the personal and professional papers of Frank Stanton, president of the Columbia Broadcasting Company (CBS) from 1946 to 1971, for the Manuscript Division; 152 black & white photographs of the 1963 Civil Rights March on Washington for the Prints & Photographs Division; and the documentary films of Robert Graff, notably his series on Winston Churchill produced in 1960, for the Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division. In addition, for the Music Division, ANAD acquired Paul Simon s handwritten lyric sheets of his hit song Graceland placed on deposit for three years by Mr. Simon. The acquisitions divisions received and processed 46,953 pieces, chiefly print for the general collections, as gifts to the Library, compared to the 60,027 items received by gift in fiscal In a negotiation that involved all three techniques of purchase, exchange, and gift, ABA acquired a collection of pamphlets, leaflets, and posters from the Russian parliamentary elections of December 2007 and the presidential elections of March These materials were acquired variously by purchase from the Russian book dealer East View, by exchange from the State Public Historical Library in Moscow, and by gift from a volunteer in Saint Petersburg. The collection will be very valuable to scholars of contemporary Russian politics. The Government Documents Section, ANAD, acquired a total of 343,721 items this fiscal year, received under the provisions of Title 44, U.S. Code for documents issued by the United States Government and publications received through depository arrangements with the U.S. State and local governments. The total was nine percent higher than last year s total of 312,474. A total of 54,822 items were retained for the Library of Congress collections. The remainder could be distributed to international exchange partners or transferred to the Government Services Agency for disposition. In addition, the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) closed its library, and Library of Congress reviewed the material, selecting some for the general collection and a significant amount for CRS. The ABA Directorate has administered a contract to ensure collections security through security marking and targeting since The contractor was InfoCurrent until August, 4

5 when a new materials handling contract was awarded to LSSI, Inc. In 2008, contract staff working in AFAOVOP, ANAD, ELAD and CIP, together with ABA staff, installed security targets (strips) and placed edge stamps in 210,946 volumes, representing all incoming monographs and all prebound and self-contained serial volumes; Library staff processed 3,135 of these. The team also made perforated Library ownership marks on 4,354 reels of incoming microfilm. Overseas Offices The Library s six overseas offices in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Cairo, Egypt; New Delhi, India; Jakarta, Indonesia; Nairobi, Kenya; and Islamabad, Pakistan, acquired, cataloged, and preserved materials from parts of the world where the book and information industries are not well developed. Although budgetary constraints reduced acquisitions travel by one third this year, the offices nevertheless acquired 295,000 items for the Library of Congress collections and 496,807 items for participants in the cost-recovery Cooperative Acquisitions Programs. The offices acquisitions of ephemera and other primary source materials were particularly important to researchers. Examples included additions to the Brazil s Popular Groups collection; copies of two Egyptian books, Metro and The Final Days, that were almost immediately banned upon publication in Egypt; more than 280 Afghani maps; and 65 music CDs and 205 DVDs of various documentaries from India. For the Law Library of Congress, the New Delhi Office obtained a complete set of publications from Lexis-Nexis Butterworths India, currently the most prominent law publisher in India. The Cairo, Islamabad, and New Delhi offices worked on a new Federal Research Division (FRD) project that focuses on ephemeral, hard-to-find materials from those regions. The project aims to put grey literature into the hands of researchers quickly, by having selected in scope ephemera scanned in New Delhi. By the end of the fiscal year, workflows had been developed, materials were being scanned in New Delhi for the FRD project, and then integrated into New Delhi s pamphlet collections. For several years, AFAOVOP has sought to obtain an automated Cooperative Acquisitions Program System (CAPS) to address several shortcomings and problem areas facing the Overseas Offices. The CAPS would be a comprehensive system based on detailed user requirements. In order to determine both technical and financial feasibility of the project, a Request for Information (RFI) was advertised this year in FedBizOpps by the Office of Contracts and Grants Management. The RFI asked responders to state how they would implement the requirements, what pitfalls they saw, and what they estimated development and support costs to be. By year s end, the Automation Planning and Liaison Office recommended that the RFI become the basis of an Request for Proposal (RFP) which would form the basis of a development and support contract. The Jakarta Office continued to develop, with the Asia Foundation, a parliamentary library of Timor for the House Democracy Assistance Commission (HDAC) of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Support and briefings were provided to various 5

6 congressional and congressional staff delegations and informational assistance to various US government agencies. The field director and a staff member were detailed to the House Foreign Affairs Committee to represent the HDAC for the opening of the HDAC-funded Timor Parliamentary Library in Dili. This completed the first phase of the project. HDAC has requested that the office in Jakarta continue to be an active participant in the second phase beginning in late In addition, the Jakarta field director was designated as the senior coordinator of the newly formed committee on legislative relations of the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta. The Islamabad Office continued its project with the HDAC to help build the Parliament Library in Afghanistan. From May 17-24, the field director visited Kabul, Afghanistan, to work with the Parliament Library and other legal libraries in the capital city. During the visit, the field director held a series of training sessions directed to the Parliament Library, Supreme Court Library, Central Library of Kabul University, Faculty of Sharia Law, Ministry of Justice, and the Independent National Legal Training Center. The Library of Congress also provided HDAC with acquisitions recommendations. The first set of books was purchased in time for presentation by HDAC members during their May 2008 visit to Afghanistan. The initial Kabul-based training was followed by a week of cataloging training held in Islamabad in August Bibliographic Access Work Accomplished In fiscal year 2008, the bibliographic access divisions, including the Serial Record Division, cataloged a total of 327,573 bibliographic volumes (new works, added volumes, and items added to collection-level records). In addition, they created 775 bibliographic records for historical dissertations in the sciences and cleared 22,283 items from the Grushnikov Collection of Stalinist-era children s books, a rich resource for students of Stalinist culture and political dissent. In total, ABA s bibliographic access divisions provided the Library s users with access to 350,631 distinct volumes, which represents the second-highest total in the Library s history and is nearly as many as the record high number of 363,064 bibliographic volumes cataloged the previous fiscal year. Production of full or core original cataloging, the category of cataloging of most interest to other libraries, totaled 208,321 records, only 1.64 percent lower than the 211,805 records completed the previous year. These records have complete description, subject analysis, and Library of Congress Classification numbers, as well as full authority records for all descriptive and subject access points, which are drawn from controlled vocabularies. They therefore provide users with the fullest access to Library of Congress resources and are easily adapted by other libraries for describing and organizing their own collections. The bibliographic access divisions and SRD also employed other levels of cataloging in order to achieve high production while providing effective access to collection materials. Production of minimal-level cataloging (MLC) records provided timely and cost-effective access to 29,307 items that did not require fuller cataloging or authorized forms of access points; this represented a decrease of 34 percent from the 44,447 MLC records 6

7 produced the previous year. Copy cataloging production totaled 71,790 records, essentially equal to the 71,559 records copy-cataloged in fiscal The Serial Record Division cataloged 8,681 new titles in all categories, compared to 12,185 records the previous year, and assigned 5,285 International Standard Serial Numbers to new serials, essentially the same level as in fiscal 2006 when 5,400 ISSN were assigned. The decrease of 29 percent in new serial titles cataloged largely reflected the drop in receipts from the U.S. Copyright Office; SRD had only 1,000 uncataloged serials on hand at year s end, compared to 4,998 on hand three years ago at the end of fiscal The SRD staff processed 201,046 serial issues, again reflecting low Copyright receipts. Staff in ABA produced 91,016 name authority records, a decrease of 7.5 percent from fiscal Total new subject headings including those produced by catalogers and by the Subject Heading Editorial Team, Cataloging Policy and Support Office (CPSO), numbered 35,748 compared to 9,206 in fiscal This dramatic increase included special projects to create authority records for subject subdivision strings, which greatly assists other libraries in assigning correct subject access points. Total changes to subject headings numbered 7,342, nearly 24 percent more than in fiscal year Catalogers proposed 1,818 new numbers in the Library of Congress Classification, a decrease of 14 percent from the previous year, and changes to 211 Classification numbers, an increase of 42 percent. The Database Improvement Unit, CPSO corrected 486,000 bibliographic records in the LC ILS. Since its inception in August 2004, DBIU has corrected more than 2.2 million bibliographic records, chiefly to update the access points to contemporary terminology. This work makes it easier for library users to retrieve all relevant material using standard search terms. Reduction of work on hand was a major emphasis this year as divisions worked to eliminate backlogs in advance of the upcoming reorganization. Using special projects and overtime, ABA reduced its cataloging work on hand from 137,329 items at the start of the fiscal year to 115,887 items by the end of September. The bibliographic access divisions received 372,110 items for cataloging, an increase of nine percent over the previous fiscal year despite lower Copyright receipts. They completed 380,559 items, including second copies, or 8,449 more items than they received, making these items secure and useful to library users. This year ABA began a major initiative to include Cyrillic-script text in bibliographic and authority records. For more than twenty years, ABA had included original nonromanscript data in bibliographic records for Japanese, Arabic, Chinese, Korean, Persian, Hebrew, and Yiddish materials, although the Library s own catalog software could not display the nonroman data. The merger of the RLIN bibliographic utility with OCLC in 2007 and the Library s upgrade to a Unicode-compliant version of the Voyager ILS software, which can display all scripts, created an opportunity to begin including 7

8 original-script text in cataloging for other languages. The directorate chose to expand first to Russian and other Slavic languages in Cyrillic script. The Serial Record Division led the way in March, adding Cyrillic-script text to records for serials that it cataloged in the OCLC bibliographic utility. For monograph catalogers, IDTD developed and taught a course, IME (Cyrillic) Searching and Use. Monograph catalogers were adding Cyrillic-script text by August, with CDS distributing the records outside the Library. CPSO also began adding Cyrillic-script and Greek-script data to authority records, including captions in the Library of Congress Classification schedules. The Law Team, SSCD, completed its long-term project to reclassify the pre-1970 congressional hearings. This project began in 2003 at the request of the Congressional Research Service (CRS). Approximately 100,000 volumes were reclassified through the efforts of staff from CALM, the Law Library, CRS, and SSCD. Most of the hearings have now been digitized by Google, and ABA awaited an Office of Strategic Initiatives (OSI) effort to design an interface for making the hearings available to the public. The Computer Files and Microforms Team, SMCD, began providing online bibliographic access to all titles in the Microform Reading Room (MicRR). The Musical Theater Sheet Music project, with the help of five Junior Fellows Summer Interns, began providing access to approximately 1,400 boxes of musical theater sheet music held by the Music Division. The vast majority of this material is neither in the LC ILS nor in the Music Division s card catalogs. This year 38,381 titles were added to an Access database, bringing the total number of individual songs in the database to 49,000. In addition, more than 560 full bibliographic records were created in the ILS for items of particular importance, primarily pre-1850 opera excerpts. Cataloging in Publication The Cataloging in Publication Division (CIP) provided initial bibliographic control of books received for the Library collections through the U.S. Copyright Office and administered the nation s Cataloging in Publication program, which provided cataloging data in advance of publication for those titles most likely to be widely acquired by American libraries. In fiscal 2008, the CIP program provided CIP data for 54,705 titles; recruited five new institutions as Electronic CIP Cataloging Partners; improved turnaround time for CIP data requested by publishers; and implemented efficiencies in the program. In its acquisitions role, the CIP Division obtained 87,479 books from publishers in compliance with CIP and Preassigned Card Number (PCN) program obligations, thus increasing the pool of incoming materials that could be selected for the Library s collections or used in its exchange program; issued 240,174 electronic claims for outstanding CIP books; searched 142,689 books from the Copyright Office in the ILS; and created initial bibliographic control records for 10,095 books. The CIP program cataloged 54,705 CIP titles this year, all at core-level and supported by necessary authority work. The comparable figure for fiscal 2007 was 53,210 titles. The average time elapsed from receipt of the publisher s request for CIP data until the data was completed in the LC ILS was only 5.4 days, compared to 6.2 days in fiscal 8

9 2007 and 9.4 days in fiscal The total number of participating ECIP publishers increased to 4,532 this year. Stanford University Libraries and Texas A&M Library joined the ECIP Cataloging Partnership Program early in the fiscal year, cataloging ECIP galleys sent to the Library of Congress by their university presses. Later in the year, Texas A&M expanded its scope to include several additional Texas publishers. At year s end, the CIP Division was engaged in discussions with the libraries of Brigham Young University, Duke University, and the University of Chicago, all of which began cataloging ECIPs early in the next fiscal year. The ECIP cataloging partners collectively cataloged 3,559 titles in fiscal 2008, an increase of seven percent over their production of 3,326 titles the previous year. The upcoming ABA reorganization envisioned merging the CIP operations into the US General Division, with most ECIP galleys cataloged in US General or the US and Publisher Liaison Division. Staff of the CIP Division prepared for the upcoming reorganization by revising the nine-year-old CIP Publisher Liaison Traffic Manager Manual and planning extensive changes to the ECIP Traffic Manager, the electronic routing and management system for ECIP galleys. Cataloging Distribution Service The Cataloging Distribution Service (CDS) markets and distributes the Library s cataloging records and cataloging-related publications, tools, and resources. Catalogers within the Library of Congress and in libraries around the world rely on the standards and technical publications distributed by CDS to organize their collections for effective access. CDS administers the cataloging distribution program as a cost-recovery service under the authority of 2 U.S.C During fiscal 2008, CDS was a division within ABA. During fiscal 2008, CDS aimed to sustain cost-recovery operations and enhance and expand the use of Web-based cataloging tools. The added goal of maintaining efficient customer service and division operations with a small staff continued to be a priority this year. The division also worked with ABA management and the Partnerships and Outreach Programs Directorate (POP) to transfer its cost-recovery operations to Business Enterprises within POP at the start of fiscal Cost-recovery operations were successfully sustained in fiscal Earned receipts were $3,729,973 compared to a spending authority level of $6,000,000. The higher authorized spending level represents a planned reserve to ensure that spending levels do not exceed receipts and that capital is available for product and service improvements and enhancements. In January, CDS reduced prices on Cataloger s Desktop, Classification Web, and all MARC Distribution Services (MDS) because of a periodic review to align receipts according to 2 U.S.C Consequently, earned receipts fell below the previous year 9

10 by 10 percent to $3,729, 973. Sales of content delivered in digital form accounted for 79.3 percent of CDS net sales. Although prices for printed publications were unchanged for 2008, CDS encountered a delay in migrating the production process for the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) and decided not to print the 31 st edition until This loss of sales caused net sales for printed publications to decrease from 22.6 percent in fiscal 2006 and 22.5 percent in fiscal 2007 to 20.7 percent of total net sales in fiscal CDS distributed products and services to 3,665 active accounts in fiscal 2008 a decrease of 217 over last year. Year-to-year fluctuation in active customers is normal and most of this year s decrease was due to customer service staff deleting obsolete accounts. The profile of CDS customers remained the same: academic libraries and other educational institutions continued to be the major audience for CDS products and services (more than 51 percent of all accounts), followed by profit and non-profit information services organizations, public and regional library systems, governmental agencies, and other miscellaneous customers. An ongoing CDS strategic goal is to increase the net sales percentage for web-based products to offset declining print product sales. The two services, Classification Web and Cataloger s Desktop, are the Library s major vehicles for disseminating its cataloging standards and related technical publications to other libraries. Both services are standard resources for internal Library cataloging as well. For fiscal 2008, net sales for web-based products increased by 4.2 percent to 49.3 percent, exceeding the projected goal by 3.3 percent. Subscriptions to the Cataloging Distribution Service's web-based products increased from 15,413 to 16,419, an addition of more than 1,000 subscriptions. A record-breaking twenty-three new editions of Library of Congress Classification schedules were published in 2008, compared to seven new editions in A new publication, Classification & Shelflisting Manual, was published in June It replaced two separate publications, Subject Cataloging Manual: Classification and Subject Cataloging Manual: Shelflisting. Cataloger s Learning Workshop, the cooperative cataloger training initiative launched in 2005, completed its third and final year as a CDS product line. Sales for the course materials declined each year since the program s launch from $15,740 in 2005 to $14,351 in 2006 to $12,065 in As of October 1, 2008, the Cooperative and Instructional Programs Division assumed full control over Cataloger s Learning Workshop. Also at no charge to users, CDS continued to make a number of cataloging manuals available as PDF downloads from its Website. Cooperative Cataloging Programs The Cooperative Cataloging Team, RCCD, with the CONSER coordinator and CONSER specialist in SRD, provided the secretariat for the Program for Cooperative 10

11 Cataloging, an international consortium of libraries that create standard, authoritative cataloging that can be shared among all member institutions. The chief of SRD provided oversight of the Library of Congress s participation from September until July, when the chief of IDTD assumed this responsibility. In fiscal year 2008, production by Program for Cooperative Cataloging members (numbering over 600 institutions around the world) increased in nearly all categories, demonstrating the continuing vitality and usefulness of the program. Members created 200,858 new name authorities and 12,536 new series authorities through NACO, the program s name authority component. This compares to 188,183 new name authorities and 10,464 new series authorities in fiscal Members made 473,241 changes to name authority records. This enormous number resulted from two projects undertaken during the year: deletion of final marks of punctuation from existing name authority records; and pre-populating records in the name authority file with non-roman cross references drawn from the appropriate bibliographic records. In SACO, the subject authority component of the PCC, member institutions contributed 3,116 new Library of Congress subject headings as well as 1,326 new Library of Congress Classification numbers, compared to 3,047 new Library of Congress subject headings and 2,214 new Library of Congress Classification numbers in Members of BIBCO, the monograph cataloging component of the program, contributed 76,572 new bibliographic records, compared to 65,939 in fiscal The CONSER program produced 25,096 new records for serials compared to 22,317 in fiscal 2006, bringing the total size of the CONSER database to 1,154,024 bibliographic records. CONSER gained an associate level member, the Getty Research Institute in Pasadena, Calif. The University of California, Riverside, joined the University of California Libraries CONSER Funnel project. At year s end CONSER had a total of 60 members in all categories. After reports from series authority task groups and serious discussion by the PCC Steering Committee, the PCC announced its decision to make series tracings and series authority work optional. In addition, BIBCO formed two new task groups. One, on Guidelines for Multiple Character Sets, would study means to facilitate adding non- Latin data to bibliographic records. The Provider-Neutral Monograph Task Force, would refine practices to reduce the proliferation of duplicate records in OCLC for monographs that appear both as individual print items and in multiple aggregator packages of electronic files. The Cataloging Distribution Service passed responsibility for the Cataloger s Learning Workshop (CLW), which provides training as part of the Program for Cooperative Cataloging (PCC), to the Cooperative Cataloging Team in July The CLW Web page was completely redesigned and mounted in an LC Internet template in preparation for the distribution of training materials free of charge beginning October 1,

12 Decimal Classification Work The Decimal Classification Division assigned Dewey numbers to 62,784 titles in fiscal 2008, compared to 72,518 in fiscal The fiscal 2008 total included 5,105 Dewey numbers assigned by the "AutoDewey software, which derives DDC numbers from data in existing MARC 21 records. The division continued to focus on assigning Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) numbers to U.S. national imprint material. Trained catalogers in HLCD, RCCD, and SSCD also assigned Dewey numbers to some Hebrew and Romance-language materials. The division s production was also supplemented by the acceptance of numbers on copy cataloging records processed in the cataloging divisions. In its mission to support the development of the DDC, the division hosted Dewey Editorial Policy Committee Meeting 128 at the Library of Congress, November 13-14, 2007, and prepared extensive editorial exhibits for Meeting 129, held at OCLC, Inc., in Dublin, Ohio, May 7-9, Among numerous other activities, the assistant DDC editors continued to advise the Dewey translation teams for French, Hebrew, Italian, Norwegian, and Spanish. They provided technical advisory assistance to OCLC staff and others involved in the development of a new Dewey editorial support system; and devoted substantial time to the ongoing work of mapping the weekly lists of Library of Congress Subject Headings to corresponding DDC numbers, a project that facilitates other libraries assignment of both subject headings and DDC numbers. With the ABA reorganization planned for the start of fiscal 2009, the Decimal Classification Division would become the Dewey Section of the US General Division. The directorate looked forward to continuing its long-term relationship with OCLC Forest Press, owner of the Dewey Decimal Classification, and to assigning more Dewey numbers than any other library in the world. Digital Realm: New Initiatives The LC Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control was convened by the Associate Librarian for Library Services in November 2006 to advise the Library on its role and priorities for bibliographic access in a world where digital and traditional forms of content are equally meaningful to library users. The Working Group, consisting of experts throughout the U.S. information community, submitted its final report, On the Record, on January 9, At the associate librarian s request, the ABA Management Team provided input to the Library s response to each of the more than 100 recommendations in the report. The Library included most of ABA s input in its official response, which embraced all of the recommendations. The associate librarian and the director for ABA met with members of the Working Group on June 6 at the Library to discuss the Library s response. The ABA Management Team was enthusiastic about the recommendations and looked forward to contributing to their realization. In January, 2008, the Library formally initiated the IEX LOCKSS pilot project with Stanford University and six German institutions. LOCKSS--"Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe"--is a preservation software system developed and marketed by Stanford 12

13 University. The purpose of the pilot project was to test the cost-effectiveness and technical feasibility of using LOCKSS to preserve government electronic journals. Joining the Library of Congress and Stanford in this project were the German National Library, the State Library of Berlin, the Bavarian State Library, the University of Regensburg Library, the Institute for Library and Information Science at the Humboldt University in Berlin, Stanford University Library, and the German Federal Statistics Office. The Library of Congress participation in the project was supported by the National Digital Information Infrastructure Preservation Program (NDIIPP). A steering committee chaired by the acting chief of ELAD led the project. LOCKSS works by crawling the web sites of participating institutions and harvesting the electronic journal content for monitoring and preservation by the participant libraries linked to each other in a closed network. By the close of the fiscal year, the project team had resolved several challenging technical and ownership issues. A substantial number of German government electronic journals was identified for targeting for "acquisition" and preservation using LOCKSS. During 2008, a prototype of the Library of Congress Subject Headings in SKOS (Simple Knowledge Organization System) was made available on the Web through the collaboration of staff in the Office of Strategic Initiatives, CPSO, and CDS. Work was begun to make this service a production system through CDS, freely available to the world. The value of LCSH to resource discovery is now recognized well outside the library community, notably in the Semantic Web community worldwide. The chief of CPSO obtained permission for outside researchers to have access to the LCSH master file, so that they could do further research that should lead to conversion algorithms for SKOS and to potential projects for Web applications of LCSH. The Cairo Office proposed a Web harvesting pilot initiative to specialists in the African/Middle East Division and, following approval, worked with the Office of Strategic Initiatives to harvest Egyptian Web sites and blogs for the Library s collections. A finished online collection was to be made available early in fiscal At the request of the Law Library and in cooperation with the Office of Strategic Initiatives and the Network Development & MARC Standards Office (NDMSO), the Law Team, SSCD, participated in two web archiving projects. The first project involved working on MODS records for 92 legal blawgs or Weblogs. During the downtime resulting from the ILS upgrade in May, team members analyzed 92 blawgs, and using an XML style sheet, formatted the relevant subject headings, so that they could be added to the MODS record for each blawg using a software program called Oxygen. In the second project, Law Team members used a similar methodology to create a web archive of 280 MODS records for Web pages dealing with the Supreme Court nominations of John Roberts, Harriet Miers, and Samuel Alito. Digital Realm: Ongoing Work 13

14 The Bibliographic Enrichment Advisory Team (BEAT) initiates research and development projects to increase the value of cataloging products to library users. The team s best-known project is the creation of digital tables of contents data (D-TOC), either as part of bibliographic records or as separate files linked to them. This fiscal year, software developed by BEAT enabled the inclusion of tables of contents directly in 18,549 records for ECIP galleys and the creation of 28,596 additional D-TOC for published books. The latter were placed on a Library of Congress server, hot-linked to the corresponding catalog records, and were indexed by Google and Yahoo! Digitized tables of contents enable richer keyword searching and permit catalog users to make more informed decisions about whether to request a book from the catalog. At the end of September, the cumulative number of hits on the D-TOC server since 1995 exceeded 25 million, including more than five million in fiscal Electronic Resources Management System (ERMS) Pilot The Electronic Resources Management System (ERMS) Pilot Team was launched on March 5, 2007, to explore the use of the Library s ERMS and how it could be optimally integrated into the Library s infrastructure related to technical services. Team members were trained on the ERMS software, purchased from Innovative Interfaces, Inc., and have been updating and maintaining the license, bibliographic, and holdings maintenance functions. The Pilot Team was composed of seven volunteer staff detailed from various divisions of ABA. To populate the ERMS with bibliographic records for electronic resources licensed to the Library, as well as freely available electronic resources, team members loaded nearly 38,530 bibliographic records via the Integrated Library System Policy Office (ILSPO) between March 2007 and September The work of building the knowledge base of electronic resources metadata was nearly complete at the end of fiscal The ERMS pilot would become the ERMS Section of the US/Anglo Division upon reorganization. Members of the team provided assistance to two digital projects outside the pilot. In one, team members assisted in two Web archiving projects for an LS/OSI project (Selecting and Managing Content Captured from the Web: a Joint Project of LS and OSI). This included archiving remote resources on the 2004 presidential election. Team members created or updated more than 1,000 bibliographic records for archived sites. In the second project, team members assisted the World Digital Library by creating or validating metadata for digital collection items. Instructional Design and Training Work The Instructional Design and Training Division had its administrative home in ABA but supported all Library Services units with training and course development. This small division accomplished a great deal in fiscal It offered classroom-facilitated online SkillSoft courses; designed, developed, and taught courses for the Voyager client; provided training on-site at the Packard Campus; and instructed catalogers doing nonroman cataloging for Russian-language material using the Cyrillic alphabet. IDTD 14

15 trained 2,346 staff members in fiscal 2008, an increase of more than 100 percent over the preceding year when the division trained 1,169. Of those 2,346 staff members, 2,035 were from Library Services. Library Services staff also took 1,227 instructor-led classes through the Library s Center for Learning and Development, chiefly mandatory courses such as Ethics Briefing, A Respectful Workplace, and supervisory courses. Staff also took 2,101 online courses, chiefly the mandatory IT Computer Security course or online SkillSoft courses purchased by the Library. This year, staff from all Library Services directorates--869 unique staff, or 52 percent-- attended at least one IDTD course, compared to 449 in fiscal The percentage of unique staff taking an IDTD course doubled from the previous fiscal year because LS taught the course Performance Management for 2477 Staff that was mandatory for all managers and supervisors with 2477 staff members. In FY 2008, the division also trained 311 unique staff members from other service units. Throughout the fiscal year, IDTD taught 211 sessions of 84 unique courses. The division designed and taught eleven new instructor-led courses, each of approximately three hours duration; offered facilitated sessions of six different SkillSoft courses with specially designed exercises; and revised twelve courses. In addition, the division designed or revised six new Quick Tips, short online simulated training segments on a feature or features of a software application. A nine-hour course, Principles of Selection, was heavily revised so it could be delivered to a targeted audience of staff members in the Copyright Acquisitions Division and selected staff in ABA. In addition, two courses were designed and developed relating to complex publication patterns in the upgraded ILS acquisitions module. Several existing courses were revised and new examples found so they could be taught to Law Library staff members. Policy and Standards Work The development, interpretation, and promotion of policy and standards for the library and information communities are a fundamental element of the ABA mission. The Cataloging Policy and Support Office was the primary home of policy development, but all divisions in ABA participate in this core function. CPSO continued this year to work towards international agreement on basic cataloging principles, underlying conceptual models, and international cataloging rules for the improvement of service to users and the simplification and increased efficiency of cataloging operations. Consequently, ABA was highly visible in the Joint Steering Committee for Development of RDA (JSC) and in the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA). The chief of CPSO represented the Library of Congress on JSC, which continued to develop a new cataloging code, Resource Description and Access (RDA), to succeed the Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules, 2 nd ed. Publication of RDA in an online version was targeted for July In March, the Library of Congress, National Agricultural Library, and National Library of Medicine agreed to test the new rules collaboratively for 15

16 cost, feasibility, and backward-compatibility with cataloging produced under earlier rules before making decisions about implementing the new rules. The three libraries would begin developing the test plan early in fiscal The director for ABA continued to represent the Library of Congress on the Committee of Principals, the governance body for RDA. CPSO staff were active in major IFLA initiatives, including the continuing evolution and promotion of the Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR) and the Functional Requirements for Authority Data (FRAD), which expands the FRBR model into the realm of authority records. The series of International Meetings of Experts on an International Cataloging Code (IME ICC), concluded in The IME ICC Planning Committee, chaired by the chief of CPSO, completed its analysis of the comments from the worldwide review of the statement of International Cataloguing Principles that emerged from the five IME ICC regional meetings and issued an adjusted version of the Principles and Glossary for final comment from the IME ICC participants in September. The final set of Principles was expected to be published by the end of calendar 2008, updating the 1961 Paris Principles that served as the foundation for cataloguing codes used worldwide. The CPSO office continued to increase the visibility of the Library s international cataloging activities in Spanish-speaking areas of the world with teaching trips to Mexico and Argentina, the latter being videocast to librarians in Peru and Uruguay as well. A cataloging policy specialist also traveled to Sweden to present training and to brief the Swedish Library Association on progress on RDA. These efforts help to increase international standardization of cataloging, increasing the supply of shareable cataloging data for all libraries including the Library of Congress. The creation and distribution of LCSH genre/form authority records for moving image terms (MARC 21 field tag 155), which began in fiscal 2007, gained momentum this year. Members of SACO were authorized to submit proposals for genre/form headings, starting with Brigham Young University and the University of Washington. By fiscal year s end approximately 440 subject authority records for genre/form terms had been created and distributed by CDS. Planning began for the incorporation of genre and form terms for music and for law, which would be multiyear projects. Several LC Classification schedules were revised by CPSO and published by CDS during the year: E-F History, America; H Social Sciences; M Music; N Fine Arts; subclass PN Literature (General); Q Science, and T Technology. Links to digitized maps continued to be added to law classification schedules. Classification development was under way for KBS-KBX (Eastern Churches and Church (Protestant) law). Development of law schedules KIA-KIX (Law of the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas) continued, including collaboration by the CPSO law classification specialist with libraries with significant holdings of these materials. Shelf-Ready Projects 16

17 Shelf-ready vendor services provide physical processing of new collection materials and complete cataloging data, so that the new materials arrive ready for shelving in the Library s Capitol Hill stacks or in the offsite storage facility at Fort Meade, Md. The Casalini Shelf-Ready Project, in its fourth year, provided core level records for 3,234 Italian books, about half of the Italian monographs acquired this year. Upon receipt, the books can be sent directly to the Collections Access, Loan, and Management Division for storage at Fort Meade. A shelf-ready cataloging service pilot with Kinokuniya for Japanese language materials in science and technology continued, and a similar project with Japan Publications Trading Company produced cataloging for 240 titles. In these pilots, the vendor created bibliographic records, including original nonroman script data, in OCLC, using the Library s account. For other titles purchased by the Library, JPTC and two Korean vendors, Eulyoo and Panmun, created initial bibliographic control records in OCLC that were downloaded into the Library s database each day. Transforming ABA: Preparing for the Fiscal 2009 Reorganization Continuing work that started in fiscal 2005, ABA prepared for a thorough revision of workflows and organization in order to improve the timeliness of library users access to content; better integrate the processing of digital content; increase per capita staff production; and increase the organization s flexibility in response to a changing environment. The proposed new workflows would reduce the number of times a collection item must be handled in-process and would ensure that work was performed by appropriately graded staff. After new high-level workflows were designed, a new organization was designed to support them while offering opportunities for career enrichment and advancement. The new organization would feature six production divisions: four with fiscal responsibilities that would acquire and catalog materials from all parts of the world; two that would catalog materials forwarded from the U.S. Copyright Office or received in the Cataloging in Publication, Electronic Preassigned Card Number, and International Standard Serial Number programs. In addition, the Overseas Operations Division would continue to administer the Library s six overseas offices. The reorganization would establish an Acquisitions Fiscal and Support Office, within the Office of the Director, that would be responsible for acquisitions fiscal operations, DMEP, the Surplus Books Program, and oversight of the materials handling contract. The Cooperative and Instructional Programs Division would combine the Instructional Design and Training Division with the Cooperative Cataloging Team and the National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections staff. This merger recognized that ABA could realize efficiencies in the provision of training both to Library staff and to practitioners in other institutions. It also grouped the NUCMC staff with ABA s other cooperative cataloging staff to improve communications and achieve greater efficiency in all the cooperative programs. The new Policy and Standards Division absorbed all the functions of the former Cataloging Policy and Support Office. In recognition of the growing importance of policy and standards for acquisitions as well as cataloging, the division gained a fulltime policy specialist focusing on acquisitions. The product development functions of the 17

18 Cataloging Distribution Service also would become the responsibility of Policy and Standards, while its cost-recovery functions would move to the new Business Enterprises organization in the Partnerships and Outreach Programs Directorate. The twenty staff members who worked with music and sound recordings in the Special Materials Cataloging Division would be reassigned to the Music Divisions of the Collections and Services Directorate, minimizing the number of times an item must be handled as it flows through the processing stream. ABA managers and staff worked intensively throughout fiscal 2008 to prepare for a new environment in which sections would be responsible for both acquisitions and cataloging functions and processing would take greater advantage of preexisting source data than ever before. The director ensured open communications through a staff Website devoted to the reorganization, bimonthly meetings with the ABA Joint Labor- Management Consultative Group, and twice-weekly meetings of the ABA Management Team of chiefs and reorganization implementation team leaders. All position descriptions for chiefs, first-line supervisors, librarians, and technicians were rewritten to replace narrower positions that were specific to acquisitions, cataloging, or automation with hybrid positions that allowed for a combination of duties. The Employees Union agreed to waive bargaining the impact of the reorganization and signed a memorandum of understanding with the Library. The Professional Guild bargained the impact. The Library signed an agreement with the Guild concerning the reorganization on September 24 and a second agreement concerning physical moves of staff was under negotiation as of September 30. Several initiatives within ABA in fiscal 2007 and 2008 informed the planning for the reorganization. The Copy Cataloging Pilot Team in ASCD was the earliest of these. Since its inception in 2005, the pilot team had demonstrated that technicians could produce high-quality copy cataloging using a centralized workflow with professional support on hand for necessary authority work. In 2008, the team produced 15 percent more cataloging than in 2007, despite a loss of staff hours worked. The team also processed transferred materials from the disbanded U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) libraries for which copy was available. The Copy Cataloging Pilot concluded at the end of the fiscal year as its staff members were reassigned to new divisions. The team made tens of thousands of titles available to the Library s users more speedily and at lower cost than would have been possible under older workflows. Furthermore, its members efficiency and ability to work together to identify problems, suggest solutions, and seek policy guidance as necessary were harbingers of the teambuilding skills that would be needed by all sections in the ABA reorganization. A large-scale test of a merged acquisitions/cataloging unit began on November 24, 2007, when ABA reassigned all eighteen staff members from the three Washington acquisitions sections of AFAOVOP to their counterpart bibliographic access teams in RCCD. The three AFAOVOP acquisitions sections, African and Middle Eastern 18

19 Acquisitions, Chinese Acquisitions, and Japanese, Korean, South, and Southeast Asian Acquisitions, did not have a single first-line supervisor. The reassignments ensured that staff had supervision and permitted ABA to test alternative workflows and streamline operations. Four serials catalogers from SRD who worked in RCCD s languages and two contractors were also reassigned to RCCD in February. The pilot served as a model for the broader reorganization of ABA. The reorganization would disperse responsibility for ISSN assignment among three sections in two divisions. The upcoming change stimulated the Serial Record Division to obtain approval for a much-needed project to begin automating some aspects of the ISSN workflow. The Automated ISSN Register Project began in March 2008 with a deadline of Oct. 1, The programming was performed by a Muskie Fellow from June through August. The automated register would enable staff to obtain the next available ISSN by invoking a program at their desks and to output a variety of printed notification letters, messages, and statistical reports. A later phase would fully automate the application process. Concluding Note The ABA Directorate celebrated some notable honors in fiscal Members of ABA served as president of the Council on East Asian Libraries; past president and member of the board of directors of the Association for Library Collections and Technical Services (ALCTS), a division of ALA; and president of the Middle East Librarians Association. Others served on the ALA Council and chaired the ALA International Relations Round Table. These and many other members of ABA contributed to the advancement of the library profession in very lasting ways. The directorate was able to recruit for many supervisory positions during fiscal 2008 after new positions were described and certified for chiefs and section heads. At the end of the year, ABA announced the appointment of three permanent chiefs for ELAD, HLCD, and RCCD. These chiefs would become the chiefs of the new Germanic and Slavic, US General, and Asian and Middle Eastern divisions at the start of the next fiscal year. In addition, the directorate expected to fill all its vacancies for first-line supervisor positions early in the coming year, using recruitment approved in fiscal Coupled with three approved appointments in the overseas offices, these selections ensured that for the first time in many years, the ABA Directorate would begin the new fiscal year with a full complement of supervisors. They would manage an extraordinary staff who display great creativity and dedication to the Library. Both management and staff made possible the directorate s great achievements in fiscal 2008, and all would be essential to the success of the coming reorganization. 19